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Paleontologists have actually uncovered a brand-new assemblage of Triassic fossils at the Quebrada Santo Domingo website of the Northern Precordillera Basin in northwestern Argentina. Their discoveries consist of an almost total skeleton of a formerly unidentified sauropodomorph dinosaur types in addition to a number of cynodonts, rhynchosaurs, and aetosaurs.
Huayracursor jaguensisImage credit: Jorge Blanco.
The newly-discovered types resided in what is now Argentina throughout the Carnian age of the Late Triassic date, about 230 million years earlier.
Called Huayracursor jaguensisthis dinosaur was an early and primitive member of the clade Sauropodomorpha.
The ancient animal had a significantly longer neck and was bigger than the majority of its contemporaries.
“The Carnian age( 237 to 227 million years ago)marks an essential period in tetrapod development, maintaining the earliest records of a number of significant clades, consisting of dinosaurs,” stated Dr. Martin Hechenleitner, a paleontologist at the Centro Regional de Investigaciones Científicas y Transferencia Tecnológica de La Rioja and CONICET, and coworkers.
“Following the Carnian pluvial episode, dinosaurs experienced substantial radiation, quickly developing their supremacy for the rest of the Mesozoic Era.”
“Most early records originate from a little number of well-studied regions in South America, in the Ischigualasto-Villa Unión Basin in western Argentina and the Paraná Basin in southern Brazil.”
“These websites have actually yielded varied early dinosaurs, consisting of ornithischians, herrerasaurids, theropods and sauropodomorphs.”
“Although the sauropodomorphs are the most taxonomically varied, nearly all were (with fragmentary exceptions) little, short-necked, bipedal types.”
“Despite advances in our understanding of Carnian tetrapod animals, no dinosaur-bearing assemblages have actually emerged outside standard systems.”
Picked bones of the Huayracursor jaguensis holotype. Image credit: Hechenleitner et aldoi: 10.1038/ s41586-025-09634-3.
Dr. Hechenleitner and co-authors found the fossilized remains of Huayracursor jaguensis and a number of other Triassic animals in the Santo Domingo Formation at Quebrada Santo Domingo, a remote region in the Andes of La Rioja province, northwestern Argentina.
“This brand-new animals is the very first to be recuperated from the recently determined Northern Precordillera Basin,” the paleontologists stated.
“Current findings consist of hyperodapedontine rhynchosaurs, traversodontid and probainognathian cynodonts, aetosaurs, and a minimum of 2 sauropodomorph dinosaurs, suggesting a Carnian age.”
“Among sauropodomorphs, Huayracursor jaguensis offers the earliest proof of concurrent body mass boost and neck elongation in Sauropodomorpha, recommending that these crucial characteristics emerged at the dawn of dinosaurs.”
“This finding broadens the recognized variety and geographical variety of early dinosaur animals and broadens our understanding of sauropodomorph advancement in the Carnian age.”
The discovery of Huayracursor jaguensis is explained in a paper in the journal Nature
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E.M. Hechenleitner et alA long-necked early dinosaur from a freshly found Upper Triassic basin in the Andes. Naturereleased online October 15, 2025; doi: 10.1038/ s41586-025-09634-3
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